The present invention relates to a packing device, more particularly to a packing device for an electric fan of assembled type.
Recently, some types of electric fans are arranged to be dissembled at least into component parts such as a blade assembly, a pair of guards, a base portion, a casing or a switch box integrally formed with a supporting arm or a pedestal having a motor, etc. or assembled into one unit mainly for conveniences in packing, storing and transportation.
However, even the electric fan of the above described type for domestic use is, in general, voluminous, and the fact that the more powerful the electric fan is, the more bulky the size thereof, in turn, leads to large size of the components or parts for constituting the electric fan to be packed.
Although there have already been proposed quite a number of arrangements concerning packing devices for electric fans of the above described type, these devices are still not only bulky as a whole from the point of view of compact accommodation of the fan components for efficient transportation and storage, but complicated in structure, requiring considerable cost in the manufacturing thereof.
The conventional packing devices as described above generally include a pair of halves or shells, for example, of cushioning materials for accommodation of the fan components. The factors governing the compact configuration of packing devices as a whole are the relative or combined dimensional correlations between the fan components to be packed and the recessed portions to be formed in the halves or shells.
According to the packing device disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 40-31594, either one of the halves accommodates corresponding one of the guards, including a blade assembly in the recess, while the fan main body comprising the casing, supporting arm, motor as well as base portion, as a whole, is held between the halves, with its both sides positioned in either of the complementary recesses formed in the both halves, whereby the lateral length of the base portion of the fan main body itself represents the effective width of the packing device itself as well as the longitudinal length of the fan main body itself represents the effective length of said packing device in a direction perpendicular to said base portion. According to another known packing device disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 47-14718, on the contrary to the above-mentioned prior art, each guard is accommodated in the recess formed in each half while both guards being positioned in back-to-back relation when packed, and the base portion is included in one recessed portion enclosed with a bowl shape portion of one guard in one of the halves, while the supporting arm having the motor, as a whole, is interposed between the guards when packed, whereby said width is effectively equivalent to the sum of each depth of each of guards positioned in back-to-back relation. In still another arrangement disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,414,121, each one of the halves of the packing device includes a central recess for accommodating therein the pedestal and one of guards, and the second and third recesses on opposite sides of the central recess for accommodating therein the motor, and the base portion including the casing, respectively, wherein the motor, pedestal and base portion including the casing are accommodated in the central recess and in the second and third recesses, and the bowl shaped guards are accommodated in the central recesses of the halves on both sides of the pedestal in back-to-back relation. In this packing device, said width is effectively equivalent to the front lateral length of the base portion including the casing.
The conventional packing arrangements as described above have such disadvantages that since the width thereof is equivalent either to the front lateral length of the base portion or the corresponding bottom portion, or to the assembled depth of a pair of guards, these packing devices still possess rather large dimensions when in use especially in width owing either to a reason that the base or the corresponding portion can not always be separated from the switch box or the casing in the electric fans of other assembled type, or to a reason that the space for accommodating the fan main body is arranged in a conventional manner such that the fan main body will be interposed between the pair of guards positioned in back-to-back relation.
Another disadvantage of the prior arts as described above is that these packing devices have the pair of nearly perfect complementary box halves or shells. However, for the purpose of fixedly packing or accommodating each dissembled part of the electric fan by means of the device described above, one of the halves is not necessarily formed in nearly perfect complementary shape or configuration related to the other with respect to its inner or outer configuration, but if properly arranged, it may be formed into smaller one with much more shallow, complementary recesses, because one of the halves may be sufficient to be arranged as a holder for holding the parts fixedly accommodated in the recesses against the other half to prevent all such parts accommodated from slipping out of the positions.